Sunday, June 8, 2008

Wine Tasting

Knowing that our guest is a wine lover, we decided to bring him to our favorite vineyard for a wine tasting. The last time we did this thing was when a friend and her sister came over for a vacation and that was in 2004 when I was pregnant with IC, meaning, I didnt get to enjoy it. Now, who could stop me from indulging a bit?

First stop, train station. We had to pick up my husband from the station and drove straight to Alsheim, around 45 mins away from out place, where Winegut Nibelungenhof is located. This photo is taken right in front of the door to the wine cellar.

And look, they've been there so long. And I hope they would keep it much, much longer, too. The vineyard has 8 hectares and 14 grape varieties.

Well, the kids got their 'kiddie wine' first. Here's MC showing off her wine glass. And she later asked when she would be allowed to taste her first wine (she was allowed to smell some of them) to which her papa replied 'you could celebrate your 18th birthday doing wine tasting if you want.'

IC cant wait anymore, she had to drink. She slept thru the whole ride and was real thirsty and hungry! And yes, we did get some bread and cheese during the whole program as going for a wine tasting in an empty stomache speaks only of disaster!

They look tired and not drunk, they got only grape juice :D

At first, the owner, Engr. Andrea Balz-Ries, was a bit hesitant when she started the wine tasting, as she said, her English is already rusty. But nope, she did well!

But first about wine tasting -- it is composed of three elements: color (swirl and watch the color of the wine); smell (swirl and really drive your nose in the wine glass for the best 'smell') and taste (sip slowly and let it settle in your mouth first).

That ceramic pitched in the middle of the table? That would be for the 'extra' wine in your glass, the rest that you dont want to drink anymore. Because you see, you are supposed to go for a wine tasting and not for a drunken evening :DHere are the first bottles. We started with white wines first because the vineyard owner said the last drink we usually have are sweet such as cola, such that when we start with red wines, we wont be able to understand the taste of it at all.

Well, she must have her photo taken, too. The last bottle on the right side is the grape juice.

We took a break and decided to tour the wine cellar and went really underground.

The kids wanted to check it out, too, but decided to go up as it is really too cold down there! I was shivering!

Here's another wine cellar, not so deep like the other one.

And here we are back to the wine tasting stube; more wine bottles! I already stopped after the ten bottle but I cant resist the red wine that came later!

These are the best wines in the house! They only produced a few bottles of them because the grapes harvested for these wine are limited. The one with the red label is the 2006 Ortega dry berry selection.

Here we are with the husband and wife team.

We ended up with these bottles. I think that would be 19 wine assortments!

The husband and wine team, they really studied about grapes and vinery. And they are hands on on just about everything.

Of course we had to find out what their store room looks like! With more wines all over.

They are still waiting to be labeled.

We ended up buying wine enough to fill our basement wine stand :D Well, it was a heady experience, this wine tasting, not only because I got a bit drunk, hahahaha. (Oops, is that is not drunken laughter!)